


Mutually Assured Destruction; or, the Classic Gryffindor-Slytherin Dynamic

by granger_danger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aggressive Acts of Kindness, Companionable Snark, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Head Boy Draco Malfoy, Head Girl Hermione Granger, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Idiots in Love, One Shot, Partners to Lovers, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25958869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/granger_danger/pseuds/granger_danger
Summary: “No, you’ve beentoo nicetome,Malfoy, and I really must insist you stop—”“That’s ridiculous Granger, I haven’t been any nicer than you’ve been to me.”“Yes, well, perhapsquantitativelywe’ve been fairly evenly matched, but you’vedeviatedfar further from your mean level of expected niceness than I have—”***As Head Girl Hermione Granger and Head Boy Draco Malfoy wage an escalating war of aggressive acts of kindness, will it spell ruin ... or romance? 🧐***
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 89
Kudos: 695
Collections: Best of DMHG





	Mutually Assured Destruction; or, the Classic Gryffindor-Slytherin Dynamic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mightbewriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbewriting/gifts).



> This idea was born months ago when [mightbewriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbewriting/pseuds/mightbewriting) and I got into an argument over who had been nicer to the other. 
> 
> Look, it's just what Slytherins and Gryffindors do!
> 
> Anyway, the first part of the title and the bit about the arithmancy book came straight from [mightbewriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbewriting/pseuds/mightbewriting)'s brain, and the bit about the squamate sex traits—well, let's not get into that. 😂 
> 
> Sending you all of the love, friend, and I hope these two idiots make you smile.

Hermione laid the book he had shoved at her down on the ornate end table in their shared common room and crossed her arms. “Malfoy, if you’re trying to enact some kind of petulant _reverse quid pro quo_ on me—”

“It’s very simple, Granger. You’ve been far too gracious with me, so I need to correct it. To restore the proper balance.”

Her brow wrinkled in utmost skepticism as she wordlessly skewered him, leveraging her best stink eye in an attempt to deconstruct his argument directly _at_ him.

Draco tossed his elegant hands up in the air in response. “I can’t very well be in your _debt,_ Granger.”

“For Merlin’s sake, Malfoy, I only lent you my arithmancy textbook—”

“Yes, so I bought you a new copy, the latest edition.” He lifted the immaculate volume and thrust it back into her arms. “It’s signed.”

Wrangling the book into her bag with no small amount of resignation, Hermione sighed. “This isn’t how friendship works, Malfoy.”

Draco tucked a strand of white-blond hair behind his ear with a smug smile. “This is _exactly_ how friendship works, Granger. Now we’re even! Better still, I’ve built up _equity._ ”

Hermione squinted at him with something approaching pity. “I don’t have time to debate your sad Slytherin worldviews, Malfoy.” She adjusted the Head Girl badge on her robes, ensuring it was perfectly placed. “I can’t be late to TA first year transfiguration.”

“Goodbye then, Granger. Have a lovely day!” His abject lack of irony made her flinch; they were more than halfway through eighth-year and she had adapted to neither his unexpected _kindness_ nor the way he seemed determined to _weaponize_ it.

If Draco thought that he could simply get away with being so nice to her, then he was very wrong.

* * *

When Hermione returned from overseeing detention — supervising a cadre of insufferable fifth-year Gryffindors that she had set scrubbing out all the cauldrons in Potions storage — Draco was reclined on the sofa, waiting for her. She’d no sooner dropped her bag than he started in. “You didn’t have to do that, Granger.”

She wondered idly how long he’d been sat there, lounging louche and casual, staring at the door just so he could spring on her the moment she walked in.

“Of course I did.” She scoffed. “I wasn’t going to let them take the piss just because your Patronus is a ferret. You know, the otter is a mustelid as well — they’re very dignified creatures, mustelids — and besides, anyone decent would have done the same.”

“Well, I wish you wouldn’t have done.” Malfoy’s face was pained. “Now I’m obliged to send you a formal thank you note. _At the very least.”_

“Oh, cry me a river. And you have _no right_ to complain after you gave me that arithmancy book. It’s absolutely exquisite, by the way—”

“You don’t _understand,_ Granger—”

She tugged at the roots of her hair and groaned. “And I pray I never do. Goodnight, Malfoy.”

“Goodnight, Granger! I hope you sleep well and have pleasant dreams.”

She rounded on him. “I hope yours are pleasanter! More pleasant. The most pleasant!”

Draco’s adorably pointy nose, aloft in the air, swung side to side as he smiled at her sweetly. “I wish you the most _infinitely_ pleasant dreams and the very best of slumbers, Granger. No backsies.”

Hermione snorted, trying desperately not to laugh, and went to bed.

* * *

The next morning, an imperious eagle owl swooped into the Great Hall and dropped an envelope of 100 lb cream linen to the side of Hermione’s porridge. She carefully prised open the wax seal and read all 500 words of the thank you note, written in Draco’s elegant, sloping script, finding its contents to be shockingly sincere. It was all a bit excessive, perhaps, considering Draco was sitting right across from her nonchalantly sipping his milky tea, but that did not stop her ears from going red.

On Tuesday evening when Draco returned to the Head Student Dorms, a book called _Magnificent Mustelids_ was tied with a green satin ribbon and propped against his door. Hermione had kept the inscription short but heartfelt and had even drawn a deeply unskilled sketch of an otter and a ferret just below it on the inside cover.

On Wednesday evening, she nearly tripped over a very stout bouquet of gorgeous burgundy and gold marigolds just outside her bedroom door.

Her cheeks went pink when she read the note, but she rolled her eyes all the same.

The smug git actually thought he could _win._

* * *

The horse was long dead, but they could not seem to stop beating it.

“No, you’ve been _too nice_ to _me_ , Malfoy, and I really must insist you stop—”

“That’s ridiculous Granger, I haven’t been any nicer than you’ve been to me.”

“Yes, well, perhaps _quantitatively_ we’ve been fairly evenly matched, but you’ve _deviated_ far further from your mean level of expected niceness than I have—”

“My _mean_ level of _niceness,_ Granger?” His gray eyes flickered in amusement.

“Oh, fine, if you’re so clever, your _average_ level of niceness—”

“Now, that’s not fair, Granger. We were _rivals,_ you hardly have an objective view on how nice I generally am—”

“So you’re telling me that down in the Slytherin dungeons, away from prying eyes, you were a paragon of kindness towards Crabbe and Goyle—”

“I’ve never claimed that, but at least I never set _flocks of angry birds_ at them—”

Hermione froze. “How do you know about that?”

Draco snorted. “Honestly, Granger, _everyone_ knows about that. Ingenious bit of spellwork, really, impressively inventive, and I’m beyond certain Weasley deserved it—”

“See!” Hermione pointed an accusatory finger at him and pursed her lips. “There you go again! Being _disproportionately_ and _disturbingly nice_ to me—”

“No nicer than you’ve been to me, defending me and giving me lovely books with charming drawings in them and saving me a place at breakfast every morning—”

Hermione balked. “My drawing was not _charming,_ it was _terrible,_ and I’d appreciate it if you not mention it a _—”_

“Well, _I_ was charmed. It was far too kind.” His arm brushed hers as he passed her with a great swooshing of his robes, turning back just at the door and flashing her an uncomfortably warm smirk. “I’m not backing down, Granger, so you ought to just quit while you’re ahead and stop being so damnably _good_ to me.”

* * *

As their efforts to out-do one another intensified, Hermione reorganized the Potions store room for optimal functionality, while Draco did all of the first year grading they’d been assigned.

He despised night rounds, so she engineered a complex charm that automatically sealed off the most popular snogging nooks in the castle after half past nine in the evening and it reduced the duration of their rounds by more than half.

By the end of the week, they were more than three weeks ahead on most of their duties.

She hated that the Heads were responsible for broom storage, so Draco gave a week’s worth of detention to a posse of sixth-year Ravenclaws that he’d caught having a very raucous and irreverent debate about whether or not Voldemort would have had squamate sex traits (“Far too soon,” said he with a grimace) and oversaw them in cleaning, alphabetizing, labeling, and enchanting the broom storage cupboard until it was so thoroughly non-nightmarish that Hermione felt a tear come to her eye.

She threw her arms around him. His cheeks grew hot, and she knew this because one of them was pressed firmly against her temple.

And that.

Well, that was really the turning point.

* * *

Her hands were always cold, so he crocheted her a pair of clumsy hand-warmers in Gryffindor red, laid in with self-renewing warming spells. She charmed a basket in their common room to automatically refill with apples from the kitchens. They held doors for one another with such excessive dramatic fervor that the younger students learned very quickly to give them at least five feet of clearance in the halls.

Harry visited from Auror Academy and slept on their sofa. Hermione was grading essays on the Wiggenweld Potion across from Draco at their small table, when her hand cramped painfully and she let out a tiny yelp. Harry was just stirring and groggily sitting up as Draco seized Hermione’s hand mid-air and tenderly extracted the quill from it. “Give me your hand,” he said, though he was already digging his thumb into her palm as she relaxed into his touch. His voice was gentle. “If you go on like this, you’ll hurt yourself.”

Blinking, Harry put on his glasses, and, upon confirming that his eyes were not deceiving him, rubbed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully as he stared at them. He scratched at his thick black hair, which was sticking out in unruly tufts. He shot Hermione a significant look.

“Since when are you two … em … together?”

Hermione’s eyes went wide.

Draco continued rubbing placid circles into the meat of her palm. “We’re not _together,_ Potter,” he sniffed. “Hermione is just overly considerate, and I can’t very well _owe_ her anything, so—”

“Please don’t ask.” Hermione groaned, shooting a significant look right back at Harry, but she did not interrupt Draco’s ministrations. “Ah, yes, Draco, right there.” With her free hand, she tossed Harry an apple from the ever-refilling bowl. “If you indulge him on this topic he’ll never shut up.”

Pushing both of his thumbs strategically into the very sorest spot until she closed her eyes with a soft moan, Draco simply grinned.

* * *

After Harry left that evening, their little common room felt different. Hermione hadn’t ever noticed, for example, that it really couldn’t have been more than ten paces between their separate bedroom doors. Or how small the sofa was, more of a loveseat, really, and just how close to her Draco was when they sat beside each other on it.

“How strange” —she rubbed her eyes, and when she dropped her hand, it nearly brushed Draco’s thigh— “that Harry thought we were snogging.”

He was quiet for a long time before his pinky sidled up against hers. “Would it make you happy?” His voice was hushed, and he wasn’t looking directly at her. “If we were?” His pinky wrapped around hers, tentative, and then he leveled a crooked grin at her. “After all, I still owe you a _great deal_ of happiness.”

“Oh, shut it.” She smacked his thigh with her opposite hand, the one not currently engaged in slow-motion pinky wrestling, then let her hand rest there. Rather than rise to his bait, she stilled, waited. “Are you really asking?”

For all of his pageantry and arrogance and irritating wit, he could be quite somber sometimes, brooding even. His look at that moment had zero jokes inside of it. “I really am.”

“I think it would.” Her voice came out in nearly a whisper. “Make me happy, I mean.” Upon hearing this, he relinquished her pinky and grasped her whole hand. “To kiss you, that is.”

“Well, it appears we’re at an impasse then.” Draco nuzzled his beautiful, bony chin into her shoulder and she didn’t even mind that it was slightly sharp.

Hermione’s breath caught in her throat. “Is that so?”

“Why yes, because it’d make me almost indecently happy to kiss you, and you can understand my predicament—”

“Well that’s just it, Malfoy, I’ve tried to tell you from day one that the whole thing is a _paradox—”_

“Ridiculous, beautiful, benevolent Granger.” He stroked his thumb over her jaw. “Kindly stop talking and kiss me.”

So she laced her fingers through the silken hairs at the base of his skull. She guided his soft, sulky lips down to meet hers. She pulled him into a hot, hungry kiss that was bound to make them both very happy, because she was nothing if not kind.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, lovely people, for reading! I appreciate you being here and I always love to hear what you think. 
> 
> You can also catch me on [tumblr as grangerdangerfics!](https://grangerdangerfics.tumblr.com/%22)
> 
> Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is being made from this creation.


End file.
